


Spoken Word

by pumpkinperson



Series: Do You Have A Moment To Talk About Our Lord And Savior, Captain Hawthorne? [3]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:22:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24124324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkinperson/pseuds/pumpkinperson
Summary: featuring: a book, the interior of a vicar's room, and a very tired captain.
Relationships: The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto
Series: Do You Have A Moment To Talk About Our Lord And Savior, Captain Hawthorne? [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1727008
Comments: 21
Kudos: 53





	Spoken Word

Max turned the page.

It was a motion done out of muscle memory, not out of having read the paragraphs that littered the previous page. No matter how long he stared at the paper, the words ran through his head but held no weight. It might as well have been in French, for all the sense it made to him right then.

He could hear the ship’s engine stirring in the silence of the corridor, rooms closed for the night and people inside sleeping the day away. The gentle hum of the Unreliable was becoming something familiar, a source of comforting background noise as he read through his books and marked down new notes. A couple scraps of paper were scattered on his desk now, blank and asking to be written on; but Max found himself incapable of producing any new thoughts, or even processing the words that were laid before him.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know what they said. He could read the sentence perfectly if he tried, but there was no motivation to. The desire to scour for more information had completely given way to drifting thoughts of her. These weren’t intrusive thoughts. When they came, he didn’t brush them away or shove them out. Instead, he let them settle in his mind with a newfound sense of home.

_Do you remember when she was a breath away, water droplets running down the bridge of her nose?_

_Do you remember the first time she touched you and it felt like the world froze?_

_Do you remember what you said that made her eyes smile and shine?_

_Do you remember, do you remember,_ his mind asked, and he did. Max remembered with complete detail, every curve, every smile, every laugh and tear and bead of sweat. He remembered and then he did more, imagining what it would be like to hold her face in his hands and brush her lips with his thumb. A want to kiss her and caress her, then more, always more, just around the corner of “never”.

“Never” because it seemed like only then would it be the right time to tell her.

 _Tomorrow I’ll say it,_ he’ll think, except tomorrow would bring another obstacle, another mission that required her attention. _And what if she doesn’t feel the same? What then?_

Max was still looking at the book in front of him. Once again, he had read the words on the paper, only for them to slip his understanding. He turned the page anyway.

A door opened, or closed, and the sound interrupted the hum of the engine. _Someone getting a drink, perhaps._

If he was asked what book he had been reading, Max wouldn’t be able to answer. _Do you remember,_ echoed. _Do you remember when she smiled and shook her head as you told her about Edgewater? How she didn’t seem like a worker because her eyes weren’t trapped like a caged animal?_

_Do you remember when her eyes were?_

He closed the book.

The blank scraps of paper still stared at him, but there was nothing productive to be found tonight, and his eyelids had grown heavy and his thoughts overwhelming. He started to stand up, but stopped when he heard a shuffle outside his door. 

He looked up to see her standing there.

“Hey, Max.”

Her head was tilted against the doorframe, hair undone and falling in her eyes - a sleepy, lazy, beautiful mess. Her ankle was crossed against the other, and she was holding a cup that steamed in both her hands. The words she spoke were soft - _just like her_ \- and tired, and he wasn’t sure if it was because she had just woken up from sleep or lack thereof.

Max looked at the watch on his table. _4:26 a.m.,_ it read. “Good morning, Alex.”

She took a sip from her cup and rubbed one of her eyes. “What’re you--” she yawned. “What’re you doing up?”

He glanced down at the closed book. “Reading. I suppose I lost track of the time.”

“Kinda runs away from you, huh?” She slowly made her way into his room, stopping to look at his bookcase, and peered at the titles inside. 

He wondered what she was looking at, if anything seemed intriguing to her, and he wondered if she would ever ask to borrow one of his books. Max knew he would say yes. He would always say yes to her.

“What’s your book about?”

The cover of it still looked at him, the title undoubtedly one of the most boring ones he had in his collection. “It’s called ‘The Six Pillars and You’. It defines the structure of the Order, how it came to be, what the common person can do to follow them. It’s… not the most captivating book I’ve read.”

She laughed, small and quiet. “Oh, no, that sounds _extremely_ interesting.”

Alex had walked over and sat down on his bed, and his mind asked and asked, _what if you were in hers?_

He looked away, attempting to stop the question from plaguing his responses. “No, it’s, ah, decidedly _not_ interesting. I’ve devoted my life to the OSI, and I can confidently say this is not their best work.”

“I think you’re bluffing." Max could hear the smile in her voice. "I bet you’re hiding some juicy bits of religious history in that book somewhere.”

“No, I can assure you--”

“Don’t believe you,” she interrupted. “I’ll have to hear it for myself just how uninteresting it is.”

“You…” he paused, unsure of the question underlying her words. “You want me to read this to you?”

“Mhm.”

He heard his blankets rustle against his sheets, but fought the urge to look. “Are you sure?”

“Mhm,” she said again, although it was fainter than the last.

_If you desire._

Max opened the book once more. And this time the words came.

The content the pages held were just as he described to her, but she had asked him to read. The first chapter was purely about how the pillars came to be. Who was involved, what was almost put in, what was taken out after several rounds of debating.

Max stopped reading when he came to the description of the pillar. It was one she vocally disagreed with, and he knew this wasn’t something she wanted to hear.

He looked behind him. “Do you want me to keep--”

She was laying in his bed, her eyes closed and lips slightly parted. Every fall and rise of her chest came with steady, sleeping breaths and he had forgotten what he was doing in that moment, enraptured by the sight of her.

Alex was fast asleep in his bed, her cup sitting at the bedside, and she looked so peaceful. Her hand was curled by her head, and her other was tucked underneath his pillow. The blanket draped across her, but only halfway.

He stood up, and gently pulled the blanket over her, letting it fall on top of her small frame. She mumbled something, too quiet for him to understand, and she grasped the edge of the cover and brought it up to her chin, burying her head deeper into his pillow.

There wasn’t much more he could do, except what she had asked him to.

Max picked up the book from his desk and slid it back onto the shelf. He ran his fingers along the spines of its companions he had stored away, until he found one that was very old, very dusty, and barely read.

“Earth Poems,” the title said. A gift from his parents. He went back to his chair, facing her, and opened it to the first page.

She had asked him to read, and so he did.

He read page after page, sonnets and songs and rhythmic tales. Max would glance up from the words to look at her, and during some poems he would catch a smile drifting on her lips. Those were the ones he read again.

Time neither ran away nor froze. It was caught in a small, slow moment inside reality where only they existed and the only sounds to be heard were the ship's engine, her quiet breathing, and his own voice. The thought to check his watch never crossed his mind, but something else did.

_Will you remember?_

_Will you remember how she looks right now, strands of hair falling above closed eyes? The warm light illuminating all of her perfect imperfections? The pull in your heart as you read soft words to her? How tired you felt, but kept reading like it was life or death?_

_Will you remember how much you love her at this very moment?_

The answer to these questions was the easiest one he had found in his entire life. 

_Of course._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading and being here, i hope you're safe ♡


End file.
